Tag: Contamination

As concerns mount over oil and gas rigs inching closer to several Colorado schools, legislators are looking toward 2013 to sort out whether local controls should take a backseat to state regulations.

Conservationists are pointing to oily muck likely oozing from a Suncor Energy oil refinery in Commerce City toward the South Platte River as an example of what can go very wrong in the looming oil and gas boom along Colorado’s Front Range.

Western Slope gas-drilling activist Lisa Bracken, citing parallels between her infamous case and an EPA probe of groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyo., says both incidents should be considered at a hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure hearing in Denver next month.

Revelations Monday that Houston-based Anadarko may be sitting on up to a billion barrels of oil along Colorado’s Front Range immediately raised concerns about the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing in an area of increased residential growth in recent years.

Gov. John Hickenlooper today dismissed the fears of activists and community members concerned that the natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing can contaminate groundwater supplies, but he conceded the state should require the industry to disclose chemicals used in the “fracking” process.

U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, sent a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson today seeking clarification on the EPA’s ability to facilitate third-party “Good Samaritan” cleanups of critical watersheds contaminated by hard-rock mining.

A uranium mining and milling company for years blamed for contamination in the Cañon City area is now refusing to pay state fines levied for failing to clean up a toxic pond threatening Denver’s water supply. According to letters obtained by the Colorado Independent, Cotter Corp. – which owns the Cotter Mill near Cañon City – has declined to pay a $55,000 fine for uranium pollution 1,200 times state standards.

Coal ash, the byproduct of coal-fired power plants, made headlines late in 2008 when a Tennessee Valley Authority retention pond collapsed, polluting that state’s...

Green investment groups representing shareholders in the cleaner-than-coal natural gas industry are pressuring the nation’s major drilling companies to come clean on the process...

One of the rationales frequently trotted out in support of a proposed uranium mill in western Montrose County is that it won’t impact outdoor...